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Mac Mini to edit home videos?

M

Monger

macrumors newbie
Original poster
I've currently got an imac 800 which is still working great. I'm looking at getting another mac to hook up to my rp lcd tv. I'm going to be using it for basic web browsing, itunes for my stereo, and I'd also like to be able to edit home videos. I don't have a camcorder yet so I'm pretty clueless, but I know it won't be an hd camcorder.

I like the idea of the Mac Mini since it's so small and quiet and would fit nicely into my living room. My question is would this be powerful enough for simple home movie editing? Not planning on doing anything fancy...

Thanks
 
The Mac Mini's G4 processor can handle iMovie and all the iLife apps fine. Load it up with RAM and you'll be all set. And if you can get the 1.4Ghz model.

I'm using a flat panel 1Ghz G4 iMac and I do a bunch of home movie editing. Encoding DVDs with iDVD is not fast on the G4--probably takes 3-4 hours to do a one hour movie. But if you are going right into your LCD you could probably just export your movies as QuickTime and skip DVD creation.

Where are you going to have the keyboard and mouse though? Being in the living room will you have a desk or table top? When editing you tend to use the KB and mouse a lot so you may want to think about that.
 
For the keyboard and mouse I would go wireless. I've got a coffee table, but I was thinking I would pick up a folding tray table.

I would at times like to burn to dvd. Probably when I'd want to send stuff to the grandparents. I'm not too worried about the time on that though as I can just switch to another input and watch tv. My main concern is that the apps run fairly smooth. My tv is 42" so I thought that would be nice for editing movies and I don't really want the G5 tower in my living room.

I was looking at the 1.4 w/ 512mb of RAM.
 
Umm, are you sure you want to edit movies on your TV? TVs =/ computer displays, you know that right? The clarity, and the resolution aren't even close.

Whatever floats your boat I suppose. I have to ask though, you have a iMac 800 MHz? That's the same machine I had (I had the 17" model), and mine edits movies just great, even with only 256 MB of RAM 😱 Have you ever tried editing on your iMac? The Mac mini is significantly faster, so that should be obvious... right?
 
Like I said, I don't have a camcorder yet, so no I probably haven't tested it. I could probably download a video but why waste my time when I can ask people who are doing it and would know more.

Second, from what I've seen it looks pretty good on rp lcd HDTVs.

Here's a link to a pic of the mac mini on a tv.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=502080

It's the same tv I have only the one in the pic is a year older. Text looks good and everything. Oh wow and look at that, I think he's even editing video in the picture so I'm not sure what there is to complain about.

Lastly, having two computers in the house would be nice and my screen can double as a monitor so why not.
 
Well like I said, whatever floats your boat. And no, the program in the screenshots is iPhoto, not iMovie.

The blurriness on a TV set would give me migraines. But then again my eyes really sucks 🙂
 
It's not blurry. That's the point. It can run it at 720p or 1080i and it connects right to the dvi on the back of the mini.
 
Monger said:
It's not blurry. That's the point. It can run it at 720p or 1080i and it connects right to the dvi on the back of the mini.
Click to expand...

Your TV has DVI in? Must be a damn nice TV... *envy*
 
Well my tv has hdmi in, which is the same as dvi except it will take digital audio as well as digital video. I guess the two are essentially "brothers" and I've already got a dvi to hdmi cable.
 
No problem.

Monger said:
I've currently got an imac 800 which is still working great. I'm looking at getting another mac to hook up to my rp lcd tv. I'm going to be using it for basic web browsing, itunes for my stereo, and I'd also like to be able to edit home videos. I don't have a camcorder yet so I'm pretty clueless, but I know it won't be an hd camcorder.

I like the idea of the Mac Mini since it's so small and quiet and would fit nicely into my living room. My question is would this be powerful enough for simple home movie editing? Not planning on doing anything fancy...

Thanks
Click to expand...

I'd say no problem as long as you're hooking it up via DVI/HDMI or whatever. And I don't think the 170 Mhz will be too much of a difference (I ordered the 1.25 Ghz version).
 
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